Serum Osteocalcin Is Associated with Inflammatory Factors in Metabolic Syndrome: A Population-Based Study in Chinese Males

Osteocalcin (OCN) was potentially associated with inflammatory factors, so we explored the metabolic role in this association in general population. Our findings suggest that OCN was positively associated with IgG while inversely associated with C3, both of which were probably mediated by obesity. Moreover, serum OCN was inversely associated with hsCRP in men with impaired fasting glucose, hyperglycemia, or metabolic syndrome, while its association with IgE was significantly observed in men with a normal metabolic profile

The complete chloroplast genome sequence of Artocarpus gomezianus (Moraceae) from Xishuangbanna, China

Artocarpus gomezianus is a medicinal species native to Asia. To infer its phylogenetic relationship to the other Moraceae, the complete chloroplast genome of A. gomezianus was sequenced. The whole chloroplast genome is 160,743 bp in length, consisting of a pair of inverted repeat (IR) regions of 25,691 bp, one large single-copy (LSC) region of 89,241 bp, and one small singlecopy (SSC) region of 20,120 bp. The overall GC content of the complete chloroplast genome is 35.81%. Maximum likelihood analysis using 11 complete plastomes of the Moraceae and Cannabis sativa (Cannabaceae) designated as the outgroup, resolved A. gomezianus in a clade with A. petelotii and A. hypargyreus. These phylogenetic results are not consistent with previous findings based on nuclear loci in which A. gomezianus was grouped as a sister to a clade containing A. petelotii and A. hypargyreus. The complete chloroplast genome of A. gomezianus will provide a powerful tool to accelerate pharmacological development, systematics, and future phylogenetic studies in the Moraceae

Pruning Deep Neural Network Models via Minimax Concave Penalty Regression

In this study, we propose a filter pruning method based on MCP (Minimax Concave Penalty) regression. The convolutional process is conceptualized as a linear regression procedure, and the regression coefficients serve as indicators to assess the redundancy of channels. In the realm of feature selection, the efficacy of sparse penalized regression gradually outperforms that of Lasso regression. Building upon this insight, MCP regression is introduced to screen convolutional channels, coupled with the coordinate descent method, to effectuate model compression. In single-layer pruning and global pruning analyses, the Top1 loss value associated with the MCP regression compression method is consistently smaller than that of the Lasso regression compression method across diverse models. Specifically, when the global pruning ratio is set to 0.3, the Top1 accuracy of the MCP regression compression method, in comparison with that of the Lasso regression compression method, exhibits improvements of 0.21% and 1.67% under the VGG19_Simple and VGG19 models, respectively. Similarly, for ResNet34, at two distinct pruning ratios, the Top1 accuracy demonstrates enhancements of 0.33% and 0.26%. Lastly, we compare and discuss the novel methods introduced in this study, considering both time and space resource consumption

Comparative Transcriptome Analysis Provides Insight into the Effect of 6-BA on Flower Development and Flowering in <i>Bougainvillea</i>

Bougainvillea spp. is a well-known ornamental plant that is widely applied in urban landscaping construction. The colorful bracts of Bougainvillea in full bloom become important for urban landscape during special festivals. Although flowering regulation measures of Bougainvillea attracted much attention, the underlying mechanism of flower bud differentiation and development remains poorly understood. Here, we induced flowering of Bougainvillea glabra ‘Sao Paulo’ under 6-BA treatment and conducted RNA sequencing data analysis to characterize the molecular regulatory mechanism of flower development in response to 6-BA. Transcriptome analysis indicated that a series of genes and transcription factors of cytokinin metabolism, flowering and floral development regulation, and photoperiod regulation were upregulated by the 6-BA treatment, including COL, AP2, FT, SOC1, LFY, SPL4, SPL9, and SPL13. Moreover, the expression of these important genes exhibited relatively high levels of thorns compared to apical buds, suggesting that flower bud differentiation probably starts with the thorns in Bougainvillea. This study confirms that 6-BA treatment at certain concentrations can promote flowering of Bougainvillea and provides insight into the regulatory mechanism of the growth regulator acting on early flowering of Bougainvillea.</i

Comparative Analyses of Chloroplast Genome Provide Effective Molecular Markers for Species and Cultivar Identification in Bougainvillea

Bougainvillea is popular in ornamental horticulture for its colorful bracts and excellent adaptability, but the complex genetic relationship among this genus is fuzzy due to limited genomic data. To reveal more genomic resources of Bougainvillea, we sequenced and assembled the complete chloroplast (cp) genome sequences of Bougainvillea spectabilis &lsquo;Splendens&rsquo;. The cp genome size was 154,869 bp in length, containing 86 protein-coding genes, 38 tRNAs, and eight rRNAs. Cp genome comparison across 12 Bougainvillea species (B. spectabilis, B. glabra, B. peruviana, B. arborea, B. praecox, B. stipitata, B. campanulata, B. berberidifolia, B. infesta, B. modesta, B. spinosa, and B. pachyphylla) revealed five mutational hotspots. Phylogenetic analysis suggested that B. spectabilis published previously and B. glabra clustered into one subclade as two distinct groups, sister to the subclade of B. spectabilis &lsquo;Splendens&rsquo;. We considered the phylogeny relationships between B. spectabilis and B. glabra to be controversial. Based on two hypervariable regions and three common plastid regions, we developed five molecular markers for species identification in Bougainvillea and applied them to classify 53 ornamental Bougainvillea cultivars. This study provides a valuable genetic resource for Bougainvillea breeding and offers effective molecular markers to distinguish the representative ornamental species of Bougainvillea

Graphical visualization of significantly differentially expressed genes versus transcripts as designed by the RSEM software.

<p>The <i>y</i>-axis indicates differences in the logarithms between the expression of the ‘g’ gene of the sample K, K ', while the <i>x</i>-axis indicates the average of the logarithm for the expression of the ‘g’ gene of the sample K, K '. log CPM: the average log2-counts-per-million.</p